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    Conservative lawmaker writes children’s book in praise of solidarity and collective action.

    Jonny Diamond

    April 11, 2022, 10:24am

    Does the following really sound like contemporary American conservatism to you? 

    Dawn of the Brave, which is aimed at children age 6 to 10, helps readers recognize that everyone has strengths and weakness, but teamwork allows people to come together for the greater good.

    I am… confused. Dawn of the Brave, written by Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla), is the last in a series of conservative children’s books put out by Brave books that seeks to “teach foundational conservative values by dispelling the progressive agenda aimed at teaching our kids all the wrong lessons.” When did the recognition of weakness become a conservative value? How does a conservative have any claim to caring about the greater good when a core value of the contemporary American right seems to be panicking at the thought of wearing a mask? 

    This is what Waltz thinks he’s doing:

    I wrote the book because in the wake of what we’ve seen with COVID and COVID lockdowns exposing so much of the garbage that’s now being taught to our kids, in the wake of what we saw with the backlash in Virginia, with the Youngkin race and now what we’re seeing with Disney and their woke agenda exposed. Now we need to take our kids’ education back. We need to get good conservative content to them,

    So you wrote a book about the power of collective, mutual action in the face of an aggressive and invasive state that seeks to limit the fundamental freedoms of the individual, like, say, freedom over their bodies and/or their identities?

    Bro, you’re an anarchist. Welcome to the struggle.